


China In Your Hand

by shewhoguards



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:49:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewhoguards/pseuds/shewhoguards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tiffany had given her a china shepherdess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	China In Your Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perryvic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perryvic/gifts).



Tiffany had given her a china shepherdess.

There hadn’t been a lot of explanation as to why – Tiffany wasn’t a big one for explaining things. Not like her sisters, who would chatter a thing to death, why they had done one thing why they hadn’t done another until Granny Aching’s brain ached and she’d grown bored of making vague listening noises. No, Tiffany just did things and then looked at you as though you should _know_ why. Granny Aching could deal with a girl like that; it was how she thought herself.

The girl had been to the fair – you could tell, there was still candyfloss in her hair. It hadn’t taken long after she’d got back for her to come running up, the package in her arms well-wrapped in paper and carried as carefully as a new-born lamb.

“It’s for you,” she said, thrusting the package at her granny, and then she shut up, seeming to feel she’d said enough. She _looked_ plenty though, shifting from foot to foot, impatient for the opening.

Granny Aching took her time over the opening, folding each piece of paper and setting it carefully to one side. It didn’t do to waste paper, you never knew when you might need some. Slowly the layers peeled back to reveal the delicate china, the shepherdess’s small face peering out from under her bonnet.

“Well!” said Granny Aching. Then, because that didn’t seem quite enough, she said “Well!” again, and sat down. Tiffany climbed timidly into her lap. Granny held onto her carefully. She’d never got quite used to holding children. They didn’t squirm as much as lambs did and were less likely to eat your buttons but they seemed to expect you to talk to them, and Granny had never quite got the hang of that.

 “Do you like it?” Tiffany said anxiously, peering up at her with wide eyes.

“Of course,” Granny said, because even she knew that was what you said to grandchildren who brought you gifts. Even if it was a picture mostly composed of snot and stickiness, you said you liked it. But this was Tiffany, who never asked for much, not even approval, so she made an extra effort. “It’s lovely, jiggit. A shepherdess, eh? Very nice. Very.. frilly.”

“It made me think of you,” Tiffany said, and for some reason that admittance seemed to upset the child. She flushed, suddenly red and awkward, refusing to look her granny in the eye. Granny Aching had never been one to enquire too deeply into problems people didn’t want to speak about; usually, when they were ready, they were more than happy to tell you far more than you ever wanted to know. Instead, she resorted to her default activity and took Tiffany to see to the sheep with her. An hour or so tramping around in the mud fixed most things, and what it didn’t fix turpentine did.

It wasn’t until she’d got back, having dropped Tiffany off with a mother who sighed at having to scrape the dirt off yet _again_ , that she got another chance to look at the shepherdess. She washed her hands before she picked it up; some things looked far too clean and fancy to be dirtied.

There were certainly no smudges of dirt on that girl! Not a hair out of place, dressed up from her head to her feet. Delicate china hands, clean and pink without earth embedded in them, clutched at the shepherdess’s crook. The hat – Granny Aching had seen one like that once, from some woman who’d come down from the town. She hadn’t lasted long before she went back either – the hills could be cruel to people who weren’t used to them. And then there was the dress – who could wear a dress like that, pristine and without a single patch in it? That wouldn’t last long.

But Tiffany had looked at it, and seen her granny.

Slowly, Granny Aching rose and moved to look at herself in the mirror. It was a cracked old thing; not much of a mirror, but then she hadn’t much of a reflection to look at! Quickly, she did an inventory. Teeth – those she had left were yellow with tobacco now. Fingers – likewise stained yellow. Hair she’d long given up doing anything about – hair didn’t stay neat long when you had to dive into a bush to rescue a lost lamb. Clothes – well, her boots were her boots and the less said about the rest the better really. They were _practical,_ and practical was what was needed. Sheep didn’t care about frills, not unless they tasted good.

But Tiffany had looked at her granny and seen something as beautiful and delicate as the china shepherdess. Slowly, Granny Aching started to smile.

“Not looking bad, old thing,” she told her reflection, and for the first time in a long time – the first time since she was a girl in fact – she allowed herself to do a little twirl before the mirror.

The mirror, old and cracked as it was, somehow performed something magical. Hair which was knotted and tangled suddenly seemed as though it might be quite at home under a pretty blue bonnet. Her hands no longer seemed so worn, her face not quite so lined. Of course, her boots were still her boots – who would want to get rid of those? Boots were _useful._ Yet somehow even they seemed more than the clumpy old things which had lasted her twenty years, and which were stuffed with paper to keep out the damp.

Nothing had changed. She was still herself, still old Granny Aching, just as she had always been. But for a moment, laughing and twirling in the mirror like a young girl, Granny Aching knew she was beautiful. More beautiful than  any china shepherdess.

Of course, she knew, it was all nonsense. Nothing more than a little girl too young to understand what shepherding was – too innocent to see the reality to her grimy old granny. That was all it was – no magic in it at all.

But that time, it was magic.

And it didn’t stop being magic just because you knew how it had been done.

 


End file.
